Hawaiian, or Klip Dagga, pure petals only - Leonotis nepetifolia

Botanical name: Leonotis nepetifolia

Other names: Hawaiian Dagga, Lion’s Ear, Christmas Candlestick, Tilley’s Curse, Shandilay, Grantiparani

Family: Lamiaceae

Distribution: Africa, India, Hawaii

Origin : USA (Hawaii)

Hawaiian Dagga, also known as Lion's ear or Klip Dagga, is a close relative to the famous Wild Dagga (Leonotis leonurus). Both have gorgeous petals, orange-red in color. It's rather found in Tropical Africa and India, rather than South Africa such as Wild Dagga. It's also found in Hawaii where a very special variety of Leonotis nepetefolia grows.

Most species of Leonotis have some traditional use. The Hottentos and Buishmen used the buds, petals and leaves. This bush may be one of the plants subsumed under the name kanna (see Sceletium tortuosum).

In the past decades, the plant raised interest from the Hawaiian people for its relaxing, anti-depression, and euphoriant properties as well as to help with liver, stomach and skin problems.

Both wild and klip dagga have their own advantages. Klip dagga is said to be very much the stronger of the two and emits a very skunky aroma that many people find particularly pleasant.  However, the idea about strength seems to pertain more to the leaf material and perhaps the petals.  Klip dagga pods tend to turn brown with maturity and are usually less desirable than those of leonotis leonurus at that point. If you can dry the pods before they set seed, they will remain green. But they are essentially clusters of needle-tipped capsules, and that make handling particularly annoying and painful.

Klip dagga has much larger leaves though, and they produce much more biomass. The biggest of klip dagga’s heart-shaped leaves can be the size of an adult hand, and the plants can reach upwards of 10 feet in just a few months of outdoor growing! Klip dagga can be grown indoors too, and it will even set seed. But the plants will only be a small-scale model of their outdoor counterparts.  Klip dagga also sets seed much more readily than wild dagga, and it will usually reseed the area it is growing in so that you do not have to buy or sow seed every year. You can tell the two species apart by their seeds.

This product contains just the orange flower petals, which are considered the most essential part of the plant. They are extremely laborious to collect.

 

Our Hawaiian Dagga

Our Hawaiian Dagga is higher quality because it's freshly harvested by knowledgeable family farmers, as well as it's stored in the cold and dark. It contains a high content of essential oils.

Our Hawaiian Dagga is ethically harvested by local family farmers.

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Our products are of the highest quality but they have not been certified by the FDA neither Health Canada for human consumption. Therefore, we have to specify that they cannot be sold for human consumption. They are sold for incense and soap making purposes, decorative purposes and/or legitimate ethnobotanical research. The information given about the plants is for academic purposes only and not intended to be used medically. TrancePlants, its suppliers, agents, employees and distributors cannot be held accountable for any misuse of the products offered.